Abstract

In this study we search the way to increase and promote the Pota Blava Prat (blue leg Prat) chicken and determine if there would be actual profits on using a yard from an agricultural exploitation on the Prat (Barcelona, Catalonia) area. The study is designed for a small quantity of chicken and to be a uni-personal business, so its profits will go exclusively to the farmer. To obtain the exploitation Net Present Value (NPV) and the Internal Rate of Return (IRR), we needed to calculate an initial budget including the starting investment, assuming a five years lifetime, and the investment for each time period. We made a field study to get the daily feed amount the chickens need. We built 4 enclosures where chicken were feed with different food amounts to see which one grew up the more. Through the study duration, and knowing the need of a 15-days sanitizing lapse between growing periods, the conclusion is that three periods for year are feasible. So a total of 15 periods for the 5-years scheduled lifetime. The field task lasted for 103 days, and after it the best food/final weight results were found on G3 group, where for a 59,739.15 g of consumption, the average weight was 1,794.6 g. These values were obtained from a 10 animal average. From these results we have calculated a 277,09 NPV and a 9,01 % IRR. Having in mind the low profitability of this study, we tried to improve it doubling the amount of animals in each enclosure, from 10 to 20, always within the regulations. This change offered a 1111,77 NPV and a 26,38 % IRR. With this second result, we concluded that the study is profitable. However, its Net Present Value is low, so to have a real profit it would need to be produced at a larger scale.